Everything We Know About Athena in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel

Borderlands is full of murderers, sociopaths, and homicidal robots. But despite that wealth of...colorful characters, one of the most exciting is Athena -- the one written to be more like you and me.

"Subtle" probably isn't the word you'd associate with Borderlands' playable characters, like the punch-happy Brick, or Salvador, the stunted, dual-wielding Gunzerker, but it's a little closer to what we can expect from Athena. That's not to say she's a slouch -- far from it. She's still a mercenary fighting for a paycheck and capable of taking down tons of enemies with tossed projectiles (see the video below!). But she's also the moral outlier of the Pre-Sequel cast, and as such, the way she interprets Handsome Jack's rise to power is, perhaps, a bit more human.

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"[Athena is] primarily defined by characteristics that don’t stand out and slap you in the face the way a lot of characteristics do," said Anthony Burch, one of the writers on Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. "Handsome Jack is really smarmy and really arrogant and really casual. Tiny Tina is really hyperactive and really violent and all these things that are loud and in your face. Characters like Roland and Athena are stoic and respectful and Zen and samurai, and within that palette of characters, they don’t really jump out at you in the same way."

It's hard to imagine one being "Zen" alongside Claptrap, which is quite possibly the most (lovably) annoying thing in the known universe, but for the game's writers, that interaction between opposite characters is exactly the point. The absurdity or exaggerated views of one can be used as a lens to view the others.

"The key is in not trying too hard, and in relying on the characters around her," said Maurice Suckling, also a member of the Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel writing team. "It’s the reactions that she generates around her that actually make her interesting."

"Your options when you’re playing these characters are: a dude who is going to burn New Haven to the ground and shoot Helena Pierce in the head so that her head flies off and Jack’s gonna laugh at her; somebody who strangles a dog just for fun, a Claptrap that is basically the most annoying thing on the planet," Burch said. "Within that spread you’re going to have somebody who’s like, 'Can I just have somebody who’s like a normal person that doesn’t want to do horrible things to people?' And yeah, she’s sort of the moral compass in that as things go on she begins to think maybe something’s a little bit weird about all this."

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Athena is unique to the Pre-Sequel cast because she's the only playable character whose future is still undefined. Wilhem, for example, meets his demise early in Borderlands 2 at the hands of the player. Claptrap keeps being Claptrap. Athena's fate, and indeed her identity as a character, aren't set in stone, which offered the writers a refreshing dose of freedom when writing her story and dialogue.

"These characters are so ill-defined, and they’ve had such little time in the spotlight, that they’re really impressions of characters that you can interpret quite freely when it comes to writing them," Suckling said. "Nisha’s sort of an unpleasant, selfish character. If that’s all you kind of get, and she’s got this classy, no-nonsense aspect to her, that’s enough for you to start working on. The sketch is already there. I don’t think any of us felt overly constrained by that – not in any way that felt oppressive. It felt as if it was very freeing."

We'll have more on Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel rolling out every day this week. But for now, take a look at our preview that checks out the new weapons, locations, and combat mechanics.